


every time you close your eyes

by Abby_S



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Declarations Of Love, Episode: s05e04 The End, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2014-08-09
Packaged: 2018-02-12 11:19:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2107836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abby_S/pseuds/Abby_S
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>The apocalypse destroyed everything they ever stood for. It shattered their very foundations, sucked the Grace out of Anna’s body until she felt like nothing but a burnt-out shell, something to be thrown away in disgust.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>  <em>Jo didn’t throw her away.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	every time you close your eyes

Every time Jo smiles, it's like the world gets back a piece of its long-lost beauty.

The apocalypse destroyed everything they ever stood for. It shattered their very foundations, sucked the Grace out of Anna’s body until she felt like nothing but a burnt-out shell, something to be thrown away in disgust.

Jo didn’t throw her away.

She still looks at her with this mixture of awe and surprise, like she can’t figure out why Anna bothered to stay with her in the first place. Anna never told Jo that she reminds her of everything they lost. It’s a good ache, the kind of ache that comes from a healing wound. Anna relishes it, welcomes it like one presses the edges of a bruise.

Anna never told Jo she loves her. She feels like it would make it  _ real _ , somehow. More real than this huge clusterfuck of  _ feelings _ , of shivers, of smiles. More real than her trust and her friendship.

Love is a dangerous word, these days more than ever. More than ever, when a second is enough for you to lose everything.

 Their cabin smells of wax and bad coffee. It smells of mud, too, and Anna can already feel it. Her knees protesting when she wakes up in the morning, gnawed by humidity and too-long hours spent guarding the gates of the camp. Her human body is decaying, aging slowly. She hates it.

Jo is humming under her breath, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as she cleans the barrel of her gun.  _ I love you _ , Anna thinks. It is a fleeting thought, one she tries to shove back desperately. But it’s too big for her empty body, resonates in the cavities of her chest, rings out at her ears like a heartbeat.

_ I love you _ , she mouths silently, and bows her head. Tries to forget the end of the world, the devil roaming the Earth.  _ I love you, ‘till death do us part. Hell, it may come sooner rather than later.  _

**

“I love you,” she says, finally.

It is but a whisper, yet it echoes against the walls she built in her mind. In the end, it is like a shout, one she can't hold back. Not when Jo's blood is still staining her hands. Jo blinks slowly, tiredly, and there is a light in her eyes that reminds Anna of the sun. Her _soul_ is so bright Anna feels like she can still see it, through the haze of her own humanity. It makes the ache in her bones disappear, watching the way Jo's eyelashes flutter up and down. She is alive. It is the end of the world. The devil is at their doorstep, but Jo is alive, and Anna feels like she did the first time she saw a human, her young Grace bounding with energy as she watched these little ants that were so different from her. They built, they fought, they loved and  betrayed, they ruled and they fell. She saw kings die under the swords of their lovers, she saw civilizations arise and crumble into dust. She saw glory and hatred, and the overwhelming beauty of ephemeral lives blinking on and off all over a blue globe. 

She saw all this, and even more.

Then, she fell. Then, she _felt._ She felt the careless joy of being held by a mother, by a father. She felt the tender thrills of a first kiss and the wrenching pain of a first heartbreak. She felt despair and grief, she felt pain and love. 

Yet, nothing is more important than the racing pulse that thumps against her fingers when she caresses Jo's neck.

“I love you,” she repeats, and Jo's pale lips crack into a smile, blood seeping through the chaps. Jo closes her eyes, and her skin is pale, so pale Anna can almost see through it. Her hair is dirty and tangled. On her cheeks is smeared her own blood, like horrific war paints. 

She is beautiful. 

“I know,” Jo says. She coughs wetly, and her eyes are shining with delighted tears. The gash on her neck is almost an afterthought. “I know, Anna. I love you, too.” 

Anna laughs and cries at the same time. In the background, a gunshot. 

That's it, then. Either the devil is dead, or they lost. 

“Don't leave me,” Anna whispers, and Jo shakes her head. Her blonde, golden head, and this innocence she somehow managed to keep, after all these years. 

“I won't,” she rasps, the ghost of a smile tugging at her lips. “I could never leave you. I'll be here.” 

In her eyes, now, there is a sunset. Its light is fading into a great ocean of emptiness, and Anna's heart is slowly fading along with it. 

“I love you,” she says again. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

It is like a mantra, like a spell, and she keeps saying it over and again until Jo exhales her last sigh.

Anna does not cry.

Her world has ended today.


End file.
